


If All the World Were Paper

by busaikko



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M, Portraits, Post-Canon, Snupin Santa Fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco's just got engaged, Harry's found and lost what he really wants, Severus is having the time of his life-after-death, and Remus, in a spectacular failure of subtlety, may (or may not) have done something drastic in a fit of magical pique.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If All the World Were Paper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snegurochka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snegurochka/gifts).



> For Snegurochka Lee, who wanted Snape/Lupin/Harry/Draco bodyswap, courtship as portraits, and cheating. Um. As the man says, Will It Blend?  
> Dramatis Personae:  
> Severus Snape (detention-room graffiti)  
> Remus Lupin (a slick portrait)  
> Draco Malfoy (a real boy)  
> Harry Potter (another real boy)

Draco woke with his head pillowed on a solid masculine chest, which was normal, but everything he saw when he opened his eyes was terrifying and strange. The chest under him was covered with a spattering of ginger hair, and the room he was in shifted perspectives alarmingly as he raised his head and looked down at – fuck, a Weasley.

The Weasley's eyes popped open, and his eyebrows mashed together like a collision of caterpillars. Draco supposed the expression was meant to be more concerned than horrified, but it just made the feeling of wrongness balloon up even more inside his chest.

"This was a mistake," Draco said, holding his chin up and forcing his breathing to a nearly-natural rhythm. "And I'll kill you if you breathe even a word to anyone."

"Was your idea, wasn't it?" The Weasley scowled, pulling his arms and legs away with uncoordinated jerks. Sunlight fell onto the bed through the open window, but it didn't flicker or move across the long expanse of exposed skin or the sheet, which artistically hid while at the same time hinted at more. It was like looking at soft-core Weasley porn, and now Draco really did feel nauseous.

"What's wrong with me?" Draco demanded, sitting up and hoping he wasn't naked, but unwilling to take his eyes off Weasley long enough to check. "Did you drug me?" He groped around the bedcovers, feeling for a wand, and encountered his own leg, which was hard and coarse and _inhuman_.

Draco didn't want to look, but not knowing was even worse. He discovered that his leg was made out of dingy brown coarse-grained wood – likewise his stomach, and his arms, and his cock. _All_ of him . He panicked, and fled.

He didn't know where he was running to – where he could go. He tried to convince himself that he was having a nightmare again. Usually he dreamt about falling, and blood, and whispered words wrapping themselves around the inside of his head. He had never dreamed of Weasleys before; perhaps this was someone else's nightmare.

He got tired, though, and slowed, and started to take in his surroundings. He was in a wide field with a shade tree on the ridge to the left, and he felt as if there might be cows around somewhere. When he crested the hill, he looked down over a rolling heathery meadow that stopped abruptly, as if the world had been sliced neatly in two. On Draco's side, sun and flowers; on the other, the grey familiar stone walls of the stairs that wound down from the Hogwarts library.

Draco walked right up to the edge of the landscape and pressed his palms against the line dividing outside and in. There was a solid wall of nothing beyond, which his fingers couldn't penetrate. He was trapped, somehow, inside a painting.

Looking out and around, he caught the eye of a girl with a hoop in a heavy gilt frame. She stuck her tongue out at him and crossed her eyes. Then a large woman in an apron rushed in, covered the girl's eyes, and shook a fist at him.

Draco was trapped in the pictures at Hogwarts, he was naked, and he seemed to be made out of wood. He didn't know which of those facts was the most horrifying.

He hurried back to sit on the far side of the tree, out of view. "This would be a good time to wake up," he told the world at large, but he was sickly sure that the problem was magic, not nightmares.

He was still sitting there trying to figure out which of his enemies could have done this to him when someone knocked at the edge of the frame and then walked in.

He recognized the festive robes and the jauntily perched pointed hat, but seeing Dumbledore stride across the hillside loosened something inside Draco. He wanted his mother and his home and the comfort of familiarity with an ache that he tried to ward off by setting his jaw and narrowing his eyes. Dumbledore looked unimpressed as he folded himself down by Draco's side.

"Fred Weasley said you went from perfectly normal to right round the twist," Dumbledore said, skipping over all niceties. "And I quote directly. Are you feeling all right?"

"He touched me when I was naked," Draco protested fiercely. "And he's dead – why was I sleeping with a dead Weasley?"

"Hm," Dumbledore murmured and raised an eyebrow, as if implying that Draco knew the answer perfectly well. "And why are you naked?"

Draco hunched his horrible knees up closer to his chin. "All my clothes are back at my flat." He felt his emotions start to veer out of control again, and bit down on his lip, only it didn't hurt the way it was supposed to.

Dumbledore coughed and reached into his robes. He pulled out a billowy yellow shirt and a pair of patched trousers. "You keep your spare clothes in the Still Life with Pears and Musty Wardrobe," Dumbledore corrected. He poked one finger curiously at Draco's temple while Draco clutched the clothes to his chest and wished very hard for Dumbledore to go away so he could dress in private. "Are you feeling quite well, Severus?"

Draco tried to find the right words, but he was too stupid with horror. His stammering started with _No_ and stumbled through an incoherency of consonants and pronouns until he managed to get out, "That's not me, I'm not him," and then had to ask, holding up one unnatural hand, "Professor Snape?"

Dumbledore's faint expression of affable disapproval sharpened like it had been honed. "Ah," he said, looking at Draco from the corners of his eyes, and then nodding slowly. Draco couldn't bear the tension any longer, and yanked the shirt over his head quickly. It was long enough that he could pull it down nearly to his knees, and he managed to jab his wooden legs into the trousers without flashing Dumbledore with either his monstrous cock or his arse. "So if you are not he, then who are you?"

Draco opened his mouth, actually considered his reply, and then closed his lips tight. The last time he'd seen Dumbledore he'd been prepared to kill him – or at any rate, he'd been prepared to be prepared to kill him. He'd known the murder needed to be done, to keep his family safe. The specifics had been something he'd avoided thinking of until he had his wand in hand and the Killing Curse on his tongue. He'd thought at the time that he could not bear becoming like Voldemort, and he hadn't seen that any of the murders had made life better for anyone besides Voldemort, and people who liked to kill.

Dumbledore, Draco had felt as he stood on the tower, understood that while many people might argue about what was good and best, the nature of evil was immutable and inexcusable.

"What happened to Professor Snape?" Draco asked, wrapping his arms around his stomach so he could hide his hands. "Weasley was a painting, and you are, and so was that girl and her mother."

Dumbledore beamed. "A very odd twist of serendipity," he said. "While no official portrait of Professor Snape could be found after the battle, when the portraits in the Great Hall were enchanted so – serendipitously – was a very life-like if somewhat exaggerated likeness carved into the underside of a lab table in Professor Snape's classroom."

Draco straightened his shoulders in terror. "I'm in a body made in _detention_?"

Dumbledore pursed his mouth, and Draco thought darkly that the man'd had decades' experience in not laughing at people when he was meant to be sympathetic. But his eyes gave his amusement away, even as he patted Draco bracingly on the shoulder. "Once the Headmistress is alerted to the problem, I'm sure she'll have you restored in three shakes of a lamb's tail."

Draco frowned. He hadn't studied lambs and didn't know the first thing about their time-scale, but that didn't sound soon enough to him. He wondered, for the first time, what Potter would think about the situation. Potter probably wouldn't be able to keep from laughing. There was probably some horrible irony in the fact that the first night Draco had spent alone after his spectacularly unpleasant breakup with Potter, he'd woken up in Professor Snape's body, curled up with a Weasley. It was almost enough to make Draco want to go crawling back and say he was sorry for everything, even if it meant getting laughed at.

He tried not to wonder if he had died, somehow, and ended up in a personal hell of eternal school. He hoped not. All his bad choices had been predicated on survival; he'd have done things differently if he had known he was on the brink of... whatever.

Dumbledore pushed to his feet and offered Draco a hand up. Draco noted that neither of his well-drawn hands was cursed, and took the assistance only a bit resentfully. His – Professor Snape's – body was stiff. Wooden, even.

"Who did you say you were, again?" Dumbledore asked, leading Draco over the hill and out of an observer's view. On the other side of the canvas, there was a crossroads of dirt tracks with a helpful signpost pointing towards _Kitchens_ , _Blue Period_ , _Portraits_ , and _Headmasters_.

"Malfoy," Draco said, keeping his chin up. "Draco."

Dumbledore just nodded. "Somehow I thought so. What a splendid thing Fred Weasley had no idea who you were, isn't it," he said with a wink. "I don't suppose you apologised for what you said about his mother? Ah, well, water over the bridge," and he nodded in the direction of Headmasters. "If we hurry, we can probably catch everyone before their mid-morning naps." He coughed delicately into his beard. "You should perhaps know that Professor Snape and Headmistress Wilkins are quite... cordial."

"I don't deserve this," Draco said, and then felt his ears go hot. "Never mind."

"Look, a butterfly," Dumbledore said, and pointed. They were crossing a child's drawing with spellotape at the corners instead of a frame. The butterfly looked like the letter B mating, but Draco was painfully grateful for the distraction.

The Headmaster's office was no less intimidating from the other side of a canvas, so Draco kept mostly behind Professor Dumbledore as they walked through the gallery of former headmasters and headmistresses to an empty gilt frame.

"Hello, Albus," Professor McGonagall said, smiling sternly from behind her desk, with a little adjustment to her glasses as if to imply that she had been kept waiting. "I have a slight... artistic problem. Take a look at Hogwarts at Dawn (As Seen from the Quidditch Pitch)."

"Ah, you're having a game," Professor Dumbledore said, sounding delighted, as if this was the only thing that could make a good day even better. "Who's playing?"

"Harry Potter's playing." Professor McGonagall crossed her arms. "At least, someone who looks very much like the portrait of Remus Lupin from the Great Hall, but who claims to be Harry Potter. He does _fly_ like Potter," she added, disapprovingly.

"What a remarkable coincidence," Dumbledore said, but Draco wasn't paying attention to him any more. He didn't know how to get from Dumbledore's portrait to Hogwarts at Dawn, but when he thought about it his stomach gave a lurch like Apparition, and then he was standing in dewy grass.

There was a broomstick leaning artfully against the stands, and Draco didn't think twice about grabbing it and shooting into the air. Or. . . he tried for speed, but the painting had obviously been done a century or so ago. The broom was heavy and uncomfortable, without any modern enchantments, and was frayed in a way that suggested it had been used to clear cobwebs recently.

Still, Potter's broom wasn't any better, and Draco was inspired to great and swift heights by fury. He also had the advantage of knowing that Lupin was really Potter, while his own identity was hidden by the wooden caricature of Professor Snape.

Potter looked extremely alarmed when Draco flew level to him, like a first-year caught out after hours by his most despised teacher. Under other circumstances, Draco might have wanted to exploit that advantage, but not now.

"How did you do it?" he shouted at Potter, jerking his broomstick sideways in a modified Hamhock Manoeuvre and grabbing hold of the other broomstick with his left hand, just behind the seat. His father had taught him that brooms were just levers, and easily tipped over a ready fulcrum.

_Just like most people,_ his father had gone on to say, and had digressed into yet another lecture on exploitable weaknesses.

Potter had a lot of weaknesses. Draco had discovered many of them at Hogwarts, as one did when one had a sworn enemy who stood to tip over the social structure. Draco had not been appreciative at all that Potter had used his considerable political influence after the war to keep the Malfoy family out of prison. Potter had become a regular, if spectacularly awkward, visitor to the crumbling country house where Draco and his parents were learning to deal with reduced circumstances and a lack of acquaintances who found the time to reply to letters sent.

Draco had thought Potter was harbouring lust for his mother. He was always telling her how brave she was, and giving her presents, and his ears turned red when she spoke to him. On a particularly cloying visit Draco had taken Potter down to the duck pond after tea and punched him right in the mouth. He'd told Potter to keep his filthy Muggle hands off his mother, and Potter had stared like Draco was not playing with a full pair of bludgers.

" _She_ hugged _me_ ," Potter had snapped, and then grabbed a fistful of Draco's hair and tripped him. Draco landed hard and Potter crashed on top of him, and while Draco was still gasping for breath, Potter said, "Are you jealous?" and kissed him. Draco had kissed back, and then punched Potter again, and they'd ended up rolling into the water and getting bitten by ducks.

That was how they'd started, violence and stupid misunderstanding and kissing, and that was exactly how they'd continued for the next year. Draco had never understood any of it aside from the sex. He didn't know why he didn't hex Potter or turn him into a permanent toad; he didn't know why Potter had dinner with his family three nights a week and his parents never kicked him out. Potter was like an infectious disease, but he learned to be very good in bed, and Draco liked having someone to talk to, even though Potter was a stubborn git who refused to take orders most of the time.

Draco hadn't thought Potter would have any objections to his engagement to Astoria. He didn't expect Potter to mind that she had been in Hufflepuff, and Potter obviously was clever enough to know that he still needed pure-blooded allies if he wanted to succeed in the wizarding world. Potter had to know that the engagement might be the only chance for the Malfoys to regain social standing. And on a practical note, Draco needed the opportunity for employment that Mr Greengrass was offering his potential son-in-law. Draco's father was not currently working on anything other than his memoirs, and his mother was running out of gems, works of art, and dark magical artefacts to sell.

An engagement would solve many problems, and Draco had expected Potter to understand. Instead, Potter had been loud and dramatic and declared that they were finished, slamming doors and Disapparating with a tremendous bang. The next morning, Draco woke up with a Weasley.

Potter was very good at uncontrolled magic. This had sometimes resulted in having sex on the ceiling, or roses spontaneously rambling through the windows, or Potter turning the sofa into a mountain of bananas when Draco's mother asked about his childhood home. Draco had no doubt that this present curse was all Potter's doing.

"I didn't do _anything_ ," Potter shouted back. He veered and nearly ripped Draco's hand off at the wrist, so Draco kicked the rear of Potter's broom up, grabbed an armful of broomstraws, and sent the both of them into a death spiral to the ground.

He was fairly sure that he couldn't actually die here, not in a state of being badly chiselled, but it was still a bit alarming to see the ground rushing towards him. He took a deep breath, held course, and then they dropped through the bottom of the canvas and crashed into the etching of freshly-baked baguettes that hung across from the history classroom.

The baguettes were springy, and Draco bounced several times before rolling to a stop. Potter was scrambling to get away, so Draco grabbed him by Lupin's preternaturally neat hair and dragged him down.

"I'm not Professor Snape," Draco said, one arm across Potter's throat.

Potter blinked. "Hermione?"

Draco wondered if a portrait could be strangled to death. Probably not; he would need fire. "No, you jackass. And I woke up naked with Fred Weasley this morning, so my patience with idiocy is _nil_." He shoved down on Potter's shoulders to emphasise the words.

Potter licked his lips. It was an unnecessary gesture; Professor Lupin's portrait was a lot more handsome than he'd ever been in life, and he had glossy pink lips. Not to mention the even white teeth: _all the better to eat you_ , Draco supposed.

"Malfoy?" Potter ventured, ceasing to struggle so abruptly that Draco nearly overbalanced. He raised a hand and poked at Professor Snape's long and jaggedly-carved hair. "So where's Snape?"

Draco shrugged and sat back, crossing his arms. "Probably the same place you sent Lupin with this half-arsed curse of yours."

The dismay on Potter's face gave Draco vindictive pleasure, and he felt the first real smile of the day stretch across his face.

* * *

Severus was taken aback to have fallen asleep with the very portrait of a sweaty, sex-sated Weasley pinned under him and to have woken up in Harry Potter's flesh-and-blood body, but he could list off the top of his head fifty stranger things that had happened to people he knew. Having to deal with the minutiae of being human was tedious. He had to put on glasses just to see. He needed to piss, and eat, and dress himself, and the hair on his head was ridiculous. Potter kept a small bright-pink pot of Muggle hair goop on the shelf next to his razor. Severus experimented. The hair didn't settle any better, but it took on a gloss that suggested the disarray was intentional.

Potter's wand was on the bedside table. Severus wasn't sure if it would respond to him. He drew himself a cup of tea and sipped it cautiously. It seemed normal, although he preferred a strong black brew to what he got, which tasted like boiled flowers with a twist of lemon. He supposed that must be Potter's preference, like the shabby trainers that were the only footwear to be found in Potter's painfully-tidy flat.

Severus looked out the window. He assumed he was in London, and that seemed borne out by the bustle across the road – the Dee's End Night-market closing down, stall-owners collapsing their goods into push-carts and boxes, fortune-tellers wandering about lost without the stars to guide them, thrifty students haggling over the leftover cross buns, which shouted indignantly each time the price was lowered.

Severus supposed he ought to return straightaway to Hogwarts. He couldn't feel Potter in his head at all – and he'd tried mentally asking the boy where he kept things like jam and matching socks – so he suspected that Potter was equally switched with his body. But. . . being a picture necessarily limited his everyday life. On the whole, he found it preferable, but when confronted with the opportunity to eat good food and visit places other than art galleries, he felt that Potter could wait a day or two.

It was extremely likely that Minerva would sort everything out quickly, in any case. Severus ought to exploit his freedom while he could.

Potter had a small amount of money in his purse, but there was more that Severus had found while ransacking the sock drawer. His clothes were appalling, but the money could remedy that. What Severus had most to fear was discovery, either by people who thought he was Potter, or by people who knew who he was – both potentially unpleasant. He looked around the kitchen to see if Potter stocked Polyjuice, but the only potion on his shelves was a half-empty flask of Miss Suzy's Unalcoholler.

He was debating the wisdom of using Potter's invisibility cloak when the door buzzer sounded. He ignored it, but then it sounded again and didn't stop, as if someone was leaning on the button. And then the pounding started.

"Desist," Severus snarled, shoving the door open right into – he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the incipient headache. "You are a blight on my life, Malfoy."

"Not so much Malfoy, really." The thin unamused smile on Malfoy's mouth looked out of place, as did the weariness in his eyes. "Severus?"

Severus moved quickly to slam the door shut, but Lupin's hand was faster.

"What did you do to me?" Severus demanded. "Besides ruin a perfectly good assignation and condemn me to Muggle clothes and spectacles."

"Can I come in?" Lupin asked, leaning Malfoy's body in the doorframe to block the door.

"No."

Lupin winced, and then the twisted smile was back. "I'll make it worth your while."

Severus grabbed him by the front of his elegant robes and yanked him forward. Severus wasn't any taller as Potter, but he had the muscles of someone who was accustomed to doing Auror Basic Training callisthenics. Lupin-as-Malfoy had the build of someone whose main form of exercise after leaving school was ducking criminal charges and social climbing.

"You do realise that if this is a manifestation of your jealousy you've reached new heights of ridiculousness," Severus said, kicking the door shut. To his surprise, he didn't mean the words cruelly, though by the way Lupin's expression tightened that was surely how they were taken. "Why does it matter to you who I sleep with? It's as ridiculous as being upset that I had dinner with someone, when you know full well we'll be having metaphorical breakfast together."

Lupin huffed, almost a laugh. "No, it's more like you sleeping with everyone but me."

Severus frowned. "But we talk. We meander pointlessly through landscapes together. We play chess and argue and read books to each other."

Lupin's jaw tensed as if he was taking the edge off his temper at the expense of his molars. Severus supposed that was reasonable, considering Lupin was only borrowing those teeth.

"You got married," Severus added, keeping his voice smooth, like the sugar syrup used to wash a sachet of bitter goldenseal down.

Malfoy's aristocratic nostrils flared with Lupin's temper. "I'd have waited for you if you'd given me any indication at all that there was anything to wait _for_. But you pushed me away at every turn, and... I didn't think I'd live to see the end of the war."

"You were right." Severus was getting a crick in his neck from glaring up at Malfoy. He sat down in Potter's armchair and crossed his legs. After a moment, Lupin walked over to the sofa and perched tensely at the edge of the seat.

"I was happy with Tonks," Lupin said. "I'm not angry with her for not wanting her portrait done. She has her beliefs. She said she couldn't stand to watch Teddy grow up and not be with him."

Severus wove his fingers together. "So she delegated that job to you. Charming."

"It's not like that," Lupin said wearily. "I hardly expect you to understand."

"If you say anything about true love I'll probably throttle Malfoy's delicate little neck," Severus muttered. Potter had stubby fingers, but they were strong enough for the job, he thought.

"What I don't expect you to understand," Lupin explained in the patient tone of a very condescending adult to a very small child, "is how it feels to know you'll never hold your own child again."

Severus sniffed. "I'm sure you haunt the embroidery on his nursery walls."

"No." Lupin pulled his shoulders back, all stubborn defensiveness. "I don't. I won't. It wouldn't be healthy for either of us. I have you to entertain me – that suffices."

"Suffices." Severus drew himself up. "Are you trying to appeal to my sense of guilt to make me sleep with you?"

"Are you still trying to punish me for marrying Tonks?"

Severus sighed. "I was planning on sightseeing today, but I suppose now that you're here anyway, we could have sex. I'm not fond of Potter's face, but even a well-brewed Rejuvenus never me gave a hormonal boost like this. And with no aftertaste of bats' wings." Severus gave Lupin – Malfoy – a considering look. "When I'm not angry, Potter's rampaging hormones make it feel as if the world is dripping with sex. I don't remember this from my own youth, but there was a war on, and I was... confused." He paused. "This does explain Potter's aptitude with something hard between his legs, I suppose."

"Inappropriate line of discussion, not to mention use of Harry's body," Lupin said, sounding scandalised. "You haven't any right to do _anything_ with his body except return it to him as soon as possible. In the original condition."

"What he doesn't know can't possibly hurt him," Severus said, and smiled. He got up and went to sit next to Lupin, who gave him a hard shove. Severus shoved back, testing his strength, and Lupin lashed out. He likely meant to hit Severus in the face but decided that was unwise; somehow he ended up half-falling on Severus and jabbing his elbow into Potter's throat. Severus shoved Lupin down by the shoulders and rolled him onto the floor in one swift move, and then sat on him. Potter's body let him know that this was exciting and he felt powerful, even though he suspected those feelings were deceptive and dangerous.

Lupin glared up, furious. Severus as an iron-bound rule did not find children attractive, nor did he tend to find grown-ups appealing when he'd met them as children and watched their idiotic behaviour for seven years, although he found it in himself to bend the rules for the dead. He'd met Malfoy's son when he was still in nappies, and because of the convoluted obligations he had to the boy's parents what he felt for him was... nearly familial. But he was aware of the sexual potential of the position, and Potter's body was both aware and _ready_ , and the man under him wasn't really Malfoy. Not on the inside.

Except of course that Lupin's typical scowl of anger-beyond-reason made Malfoy's face look like he might burst into tears of enraged frustration at any moment. Severus had seen that expression too often from the boy in those last few months before Malfoy's subterfuge came to light.

"Ha," Lupin said, bracing his feet against the floor and shoving his hips up hard enough to buck Severus off. "You _do_ have some kind of sense of right and wrong in there, I've seen it before on one or two occasions."

Severus stretched out next to Lupin in a bizarrely companionable mood. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, though, to maintain the illusion of Lupin being himself. "Do you suppose there's a Muggle shop nearby with fresh strawberries?"

"Passed one on the way here," Lupin said, and clambered to his feet with un-Malfoy-like gracelessness.

Half an hour later found them seated on the merry-go-round in a shabby and abandoned park with a paper carton of fresh cream set between them and fingers red with juice.

"I miss this about being alive," Lupin said, licking his lips. "Food."

Severus dipped a strawberry nearly to the stem and pulled it up in a smooth twisting motion so most of the cream didn't drip onto Potter's trousers. He catalogued all the sensations, the fruit cool and crisp, sour and sweet, the cream smooth with fat and mixing in his mouth with the juice. He was reminded of companionable evenings with Minerva and Filius, talking about anything but students.

"There are advantages to portraiture, of course. Our fresh fruit is always perfect, and you can't complain about the weather." Severus took up another strawberry and studied it. "If you wish to be judged by who you are instead of how you look, there's no place better. Everyone understands that sometimes Impressionism happens. Or take the example of the Abstract Cat No. 7, who looks like a broken stained-glass window but still gets petted and has bowls of milk set out by all the dairymaids. You're quite slick as a portrait."

Lupin spread his hands, looking embarrassed. "The Ministry did need a _lot_ of portraits done quickly for the gallery in the Great Hall. I'm drawn from one of my wedding photos, which I suppose is lucky. I think the only other image of me left was that ghastly old thing from the first war, with the unfortunate moustache." One of his hands lingered in the air for a moment, and then Lupin set it down on his own knee resolutely. "I'm sorry your portrait wasn't drawn. But I'd much rather have you as graffiti than not be with you at all."

Severus nodded. "That's the spirit," he said, letting the undercurrent of his tone make it clear that his jolly approval was mockery. "Good for you, Lupin." He ate his strawberry in three sharp bites. "I've been told I was ugly since I was a child," Severus added. "Being forced to inhabit a caricature didn't _hurt_ me deep down and make me turn to sex for comfort." Remus looked guilty at being caught out with his feelings so easily deduced. "Try this on for size, Lupin: for the first time in my life I was free to _enjoy_ pleasure, and the giving of pleasure, without worrying about spies, Legilimens, students, students' parents, impregnation, or any number of embarrassing diseases." He rolled his hand out in an expansive gesture of derision. "People in portraits can't change how they look. They're fat forever, or wearing wigs and pointed boots forever. Some of them are going to be naked forever. So it happens to be true that appearance is the last thing any of them care about." He felt Potter's face turn red, and missed the comfort of his own predictable body with a sudden strong yearning.

"I found a wishing well." Lupin kept his voice bland and dispassionate, as if he were reading a news report. "I was going to make a wish for you, for a portrait, and then I realised you'd never forgive me. So then I was going to wish that I could just stop orbiting you, when clearly you aren't interested, or even more ridiculous, that I could somehow be what you want. Except I didn't know what you wanted."

"Someone who's not an idiot to pass the time with," Severus answered promptly. "Someone who won't bore me in a month, or a year, or a century."

"Hm," Remus said. "Well. I didn't have any money, in any case, and I'm not sure a wishing well's any more trustworthy than the Sorting Hat or Voldemort's detritus, so...." He reached up and scrubbed his hands over his face. When he lowered them, he looked as weary as he had in life. "I was going to talk to you in the morning, admit my folly and concede while I still had some dignity. Except when I woke I was like this." He sighed. "Draco's gone and let his family arrange a marriage with the Greengrasses, did you know that?"

"Last I heard he was sleeping with Potter. Phineas Nigellus was both appalled and pleased that his own predilections showed up in the bloodline."

Lupin used Malfoy's eyebrows effectively to convey his surprise, then amusement, then scepticism.

"Potter and Malfoy are probably inhabiting our portraits and having sex in every one of the offensive Orientalist boudoir paintings Valenda Smithers left to the school. Have you been there? It's an entire corridor of harem pants and palm fronds, on the way to the north attic stairs."

Lupin blew out a breath, and then ate the last strawberry. "Let's agree not to talk about sex, because I'll only end up feeling as if I'm the only person in this modern age who isn't having any. That will make me bitter and then I'll become boring and tedious, and then you'll flit off to be with someone fascinating and I'll have Minerva fling my portrait in the lake."

"I think the oils might be bad for the squid and the merpeople," Severus said, standing and offering Lupin his hand. "That's probably not an environmentally sound way of trying to make me feel guilty."

"Why do I even bother talking to you?" Lupin asked, and refused to let Severus' hand go, holding it all the way down to the train station.

Severus managed to lose him twice in King's Cross, but then discovered that Lupin had at some point stolen all his money, which meant he had to go looking for him.

The train was mostly deserted. After the witch with the trolley had gone by and snacks had been eaten, Severus was bored. Lupin had fallen asleep and toppled over, and somehow Severus had ended up with Malfoy's head in his lap.

"Wake up," he said, and pulled Lupin's hair. "Entertain me."

" _Speak to me of the sweet charms of summer loves_ ," Lupin quoted, and half-opened one eye. "No."

"If _you_ didn't do this, and I didn't, that leaves Potter and Malfoy. Malfoy's got the magical potential, but Potter's got the vindictive lack of discipline. Who is your money on?"

Lupin yawned and resettled on his side, boots on the seat, his face pressed to Severus' stomach. "Minerva and Albus will have it figured out by the time we get there," he said.

"And when we're back to ourselves?" Severus asked, but Lupin was busy feigning sleep. There were shadows under Malfoy's eyes, and Severus wondered if he was happy with his engagement and with Potter, or if duty to family had put an end to personal pleasures.

They were met at the station by murmurs and admiring stares – at least, Potter's body was, and Lupin-as-Draco walked close enough to share the umbrella of celebrity. Severus kept his back straight and avoided looking to either side as he passed through ticket booth and started stalking along the path up to Hogwarts.

"Lovely day for a brisk walk," Lupin said, and a quick glance at him left Severus in doubt that he was being sarcastic. Trust Lupin to find enjoyment in the most perverse places. Severus walked faster. "Won't Minerva be surprised."

"I plan on telling her it's all your fault." Potter's glasses slipped, and Severus jabbed them up his nose impatiently. "She'll believe me, at least long enough to get you stammering apologies, which will be amusing."

Lupin smiled, wide and pleasant, and put his arm around Severus' waist companionably. "You're having fun, aren't you?"

Severus sniffed. "I've suffered a radical change in priorities as well as in general mode of viability. I am discharged of duties and relieved of regrets, and if on any given day I can manage to make anyone's life just that bit more difficult, well, I consider it a job well done."

Lupin gestured at the rebuilt stone pillars of the gate before them. "You could throw me up against the wall and kiss me senseless. That would be visible from at least seven classrooms if today's Tuesday."

"There are some things," Severus said, "that I refuse to give up, even for you, Lupin. Like my freedom, which I paid my life for. I have no plans to be tied down to anything or anyone ever again."

Lupin stopped short in the centre of the path, Malfoy's face comically wide-eyed. Severus had to go back and give him a few sharp shoves in the back to get him walking again.

Inside the doors Minerva was waiting for them, hat perfectly pointed, expression sour, and – Severus fancied – greatly amused by their appearance.

"You certainly took your time," Minerva said, and swept up the stairs as if her very posture chided them.

Lupin explained about waking up as Malfoy, and then having to find Severus, and the detour with the strawberries, leaving out any mention of relationships or sex. As he nattered on, they passed _Monks in a Vine-Yard_ , and Severus fell back to ask what the word on the canvas was.

"Scandalous," the jolly monk-with-a-basket told him, with a cheeky wink. "Debauchery all the way from the French bakery to the seven tents for seven sheiks." Lupin was waxing rhapsodical about the strawberries, but still managed to glance back over his shoulder at this and give Severus a smug look.

Arriving in her office, Minerva snapped her fingers impatiently, and the soft chorus of snores from headmasters' portraits was replaced by querulous demands for more information. Severus kept an eye out for any suspicious movement – he'd had a certificate in Student Supervisory Tactics when he was alive – and thus was the first to spot Potter and Malfoy – in his and Lupin's purloined forms – sneaking their way into the room. They emerged from the Quidditch stands and sidled through a few coats-of-arms to end up in the frame with Dumbledore, who was refilling a tall jar with toffees and seemingly oblivious. Nothing short of a chisel could ruffle Severus' hair, but Lupin's portrait looked well-ravished: hair on end, shirt on backwards, and wearing harem pants.

Next to him, Lupin-as-Malfoy covered his face with his hands and tried to scrub away the embarrassment.

"Explain," Minerva said, glaring over the rims of her glasses. She looked back and forth between both pairs of men in annoyance, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Lupin took a breath. "We haven't a clue." He looked over at his portrait, which was trying to turn his shirt frontways-around without taking it off. "Did you discover anything?"

"Didn't exactly have that much time," Lupin's portrait said, cheeks going red. Both of his hands came out of one cuff, and he scowled. "Who's got my body?" Severus spread his hands to ask the obvious question, _Which body is yours?_. "I'm Harry," Lupin's portrait clarified, and finally got his arms and sleeves sorted. "And you are?"

Severus smiled his one-more-for-detention smile. His own likeness had shuffled sideways and had been successfully blending in with the picture frame, but at this straightened and looked with sharp interest between Potter and Severus in Potter's body.

"Malfoy," Severus said, with a nod. "I'm glad to see that you are taking advantage of the situation in a properly Slytherin manner."

"It seems to me," Albus said, tucking the toffee he was eating into his cheek and patting Malfoy on the shoulder as if exhorting him to cheer up, "that we may have inadvertently solved a question of magical theory. Specifically, while we know breaking an Unbreakable Vow results in death, it has never been determined whether death results in the breaking of a vow which is by definition Unbreakable."

"I'd rather be human instead of fascinating," Malfoy said, and crossed Severus' wooden arms. He was clearly trying to be on his best manners with Albus, but Severus' face did an expert job of turning a frown into a glower, and an unhappy tilt of the chin into what looked like scorn.

Severus hoped his own horror as Albus' words sank in wasn't as obvious, but he could hear, ominously clear, Narcissa asking him to _protect Draco from harm_ , to which _like an idiot_ he'd vowed _I will_.

And here came the raised heart rate and clenching of muscles as Potter's body reacted to the threat. "If I get yanked out of the frame every time you fall and scrape your knee," Severus started.

"It doesn't matter," Lupin said, sounding so calm that even Minerva looked relieved. "If someone can loan Harry –" he pointed at his own portrait, which raised one hand in a half-wave – "some coins, I think I know a way to put this to rights before any magical theorists descend to write journal articles and conduct studies."

Severus gave Lupin a sharp side-eyed glance. One way or another, he did plan to make Lupin divulge where the picture of the wishing-well was hung. Later, when they were returned to their proper bodies. In the meantime, Severus was going to compose a list of things he really wanted.

Searching for coins, Albus produced nothing but sweets and lint-bunnies from his pockets. Amongst the other portraits of headmasters and headmistresses, however, with a bit of grumbling and fuss Wilkins and Phineas Nigellus Black between them produced a fistful of gold and silver coins.

"Follow me," Lupin said, and Potter, in Lupin's portrait, kept pace with him, following through the backgrounds of the portraits. They were down the steps and halfway through the door when apparently Lupin couldn't control himself any more. " _Harem pants_ ," Severus heard him say. "What were you _thinking?_ "

Severus took the opportunity to take Malfoy off for a private chat himself, insofar as there was ever privacy; where portraits were concerned, every wall had ears. He felt perversely like this ought to be a teaching moment, a chance to mentor troubled youth.

He got Malfoy alone in an alcove in an enormous impressionistic field of flowers, whereupon Malfoy sneezed for a good minute, apparently a reaction to numerous little yellow dots which Severus had assumed represented sunlight. But he'd never understood pointillism.

"So where did Lupin take Harry?" Malfoy asked, trying and failing to stick his hands into Severus' pockets, which were purely decorative. On failing to find a handkerchief, he gave Severus a baleful look and used his sleeve.

Severus sighed and hoped that Lupin had done something even more horrible to Malfoy while occupying his body. "I hear he found a wishing well."

Malfoy's eyes went wide, and then narrowed in suspicion. "So _he_ did this."

"He says no. I might believe him, though that hint of instability does make him seem more – " he waved a hand as if to indicate some esoteric quality of personality. Mostly, he found it made Lupin more sexually attractive, which was irritating. "It might have been Potter's way of congratulating you on your engagement," he added acidly.

Making Severus' wooden face even stiffer was difficult, but Malfoy managed. "You're dead," he said flatly. "You don't have parents to support, and a position in society to maintain."

"For Merlin's sake," Severus snarled, clenching Potter's hands into fists. "I gave up my integrity, my reputation, and my _life_ for your freedom – not Potter's, _yours_ , with that damn vow your mother wrung out of me. You're smarter than Granger when you put your talents to long-term scheming. Grow some courage and _have_ Potter if that's what you want. He'd probably take care of your family out of misplaced goodwill or vengeance, either way problem solved, and I'm sure the two of you will never run out of new positions to try." He raised a preemtive hand. "I don't want to know anything about what you did while inhabiting my body."

"Astoria's nice," Draco said, staring stubbornly at the wall behind Severus. "She wants to wait until after she gets her wand-makers' certification to get married, anyway."

"Then get engaged to her _then_ ," Severus suggested impatiently. "Fuck Potter now."

Draco's eyes went wide.

"Also, make him wear harem pants more often, to promote humility. You should take up flying again," Severus continued, just to mortify Draco even further. "Potter's a lot stronger than you are, we discovered, and that won't do." He ticked off the salient points on his fingers. "Exercise, bend Potter to your will, don't let social pressure crush you into soppy unhappiness and force me to come back from a comfortable post-death experience just to hold your hand."

Severus was certain that he'd overlooked something, and he frowned, but then suddenly the world went flat around him and he found himself looking out through a bleary glare of sun on pollen-streaked glass at Harry Potter. Potter blinked at him several times, and then patted himself down, as if making sure all his bits really were there. He noticed the sticky strawberry juice stains, but Severus felt no need to explain.

"Potter," Severus said, pulling himself to his full height.

"Sorry, sir," Potter said, not looking at all sorry. "I don't have anything to say to you." He took a few steps backwards, and then turned on his heel and disappeared down the corridor.

Severus thought he was behaving oddly, but the behaviour of students and former students was no longer his concern. He straightened his badly-etched robes and headed for _Still Life with Pears and Musty Wardrobe_. Lupin – like most of the portraits – kept a spare outfit there, and if Severus caught him with his pants down he hoped to find out exactly what had happened between Lupin and Potter that had necessitated secrecy.

Nothing about Lupin was straightforward or comprehensible. But Severus did enjoy the challenge.

* * *

"Potter wants _what_?" Severus asked for the third time, hoping Minerva could be badgered into giving him an answer that he liked better.

"A proper portrait of you to hang in my office." Minerva raised her eyebrows, which made her look smug. "Done in oils. You can wear your green robes; they always looked fetching."

"I'll need a heavy gilt frame to match," Severus said, and made a face. "Lupin didn't have a hand in this, did he?"

Minerva waved away his concern. "Though he did ask to be retouched. He said he missed his grey hair. And I agree. Most distinguished looking." She sipped her tea, and then slid her gaze up to Severus. "I wish you'd lived long enough to join us with our grey hair and wrinkles."

Severus smirked. "I wish I'd lived long enough to profit from the anti-aging potion I spent most of my life developing. Pity no one alive now knows the formula. They'd be rich beyond belief."

Minerva gave him a very stern look, and then shook it away. "I hear the Malfoy boy is doing well for himself in potions work. He wrote that he found a nice apprenticeship, which at least puts to rest the rumour that he's Harry Potter's kept man."

"The other way around, of course," Severus agreed. "One does not _keep_ a Slytherin."

"Not out of preference," Minerva said tartly. "I'll speak with the artist about a sitting, then, and we'll have you done properly, warts and all."

Severus glared because she expected him to. "I never had warts."

"Yes, dear," Minerva said, and gave him an enragingly indulgent smile.

Severus' enchantment was transferred to the new portrait shortly after it had been hung in a spot midway up the staircase, in a pointless architectural nook otherwise occupied by a very ugly urn.

Lupin for some reason had developed an attachment to the urn, and never failed to ask after it if he hadn't seen Severus for a while.

"So, how is the urn?" he'd say, and lean in to steal a kiss while Severus struggled with his inevitable irritation.

Severus had any number of scathing replies, ranging from fanciful ways the urn could be destroyed to vile insinuations about the sort of things Lupin wanted to do with the urn. All of them made Lupin look pleased with himself, however, so Severus assumed that it was a game of some kind. Some twisted Lupine courtship ritual, and once he'd figured out the rules doubtless Lupin would find another way to be infuriating.

Severus had celebrated his new portraiture by stalking through landscapes with his robes billowing around him and his hair blown back, glaring darkly at the students and hopefully giving them nightmares. He was satisfied with his new visage, which was as ugly as he'd been in life but animated by what the painter had waffled and called obsequiously _inner strength_.

Lupin had said it was a trick with glazes and highlights, or some such thing, but Severus was vain enough to approve. He thought he looked predatory.

Lupin had had his hair fixed and lines drawn at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and his robes had a few tasteful patches in the folds. Severus felt more comfortable around him, as if somehow they'd achieved a more equal footing. He didn't object as much to Lupin's kisses or the way he touched him, though that might have been because Lupin had, on returning from human form to portrait, told Severus that he had no intention of laying claim to him or possessing him or demanding monogamy, and had left the country with a travelling exhibition in a fit of pique.

The castle had been much quieter with Lupin gone. Severus had let the Fat Lady and her friend Violet console him with sex, pastries, and gossip. The sex was as enjoyable as the gossip was tedious, and Severus' carved outlines grew unpleasantly snug.

Lupin didn't return until a few days after Severus had started sitting for his portrait, which was a tedious process of telling the painter that no, his forehead hadn't been that large, and Minerva dropping in just as things were going smoothly and saying, "Sweet Circe, your nose was never that big, was it?"

So Severus was in a temper, and Lupin was still nurturing the snit he'd flounced off in, and Severus had dragged him off to one of the offensive Orientalist paintings with a huge canopy bed.

"It's official," Severus said. "I _have_ slept with everyone here but you. So we might as well. But so help me, if you despise me afterwards I'll never forgive you."

"What, you're not bored with me yet?" Lupin said, and showed his teeth in a smile that reminded Severus of all the experience Lupin had had at being an inhuman monster.

"I'm terrified of waking up one day to find I've tired of you," Severus admitted. Lupin had rolled his eyes and huffed a very put-upon sigh, and took Severus to bed so enthusiastically that the painting was shaken crooked on the wall.

"Whoops," Lupin said, tipped out of bed by the sudden tilt. "Oh, look – my trousers that Potter lost." He pulled them out from under the bed and shook the lint away.

"So where is this wishing well of yours?" Severus asked, still naked and pleasantly post-coital but already quite capable of scheming.

"Hm," Lupin said, and ignored him.

These days, when Severus had prowled through the castle to his satisfaction, seeking out wrongdoing and making sure that his school was safe and secure, he sometimes went to find Lupin. He didn't always find him; Lupin was found when the mood took him. But when he did go looking, and Lupin did want to be found, Severus was happy as he'd never been in life. He found this to be a puzzle which he hadn't yet been able to solve, but he felt certain Lupin knew the answer. He was content to let Lupin carry that knowledge; rather than a constraint he found it somehow liberating.

Not that he planned on telling Lupin that, of course. Lupin would just have to find out for himself.

This story archived at <http://snupinsanta.annex-files.com/viewstory.php?sid=462>


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